FallingIllini.org

The weather was very uncooperative this weekend, but the Falling Illini made jumps on Sunday anyway. Making tandem skydives were T.J. Mikulencak, Vivian Canchola, Stephanie Bonk, Steve Berry, Michael Kunevich, Brett Zitny, Tracy Green, Stephen Schmitt, Rob Kuang, Andrew Erikson, Brad Topol, Numan Velioglu, Sameer Kalwani, Brandon Oi, Anil D’Souza, Keshava Shobhit, and Vinayak Sathyamoorthy. In our static-line first jump class we had Rachel Hillmer, Andrew Khalifa, Stefano Truschke, and Carlos Bohorquez. I’d especially like to give it up for the American Society of Civil Engineers tandem crew who woke up at 4:00am so that they could make the sunrise load. That’s some serious dedication to skydiving. You guys rock!

ASCE tandem crew Stephen Schmitt, Numan Velioglu, Rob Kuang, Andrew Erikson and Tracy Green

ASCE tandem crew Brett Zitny and Brad Topol

Brett Zitny tandem skydive

Anil D’Souza, Keshava Shobhit, Brandon Oi, Vinayak Sathyamoorthy, and Sameer Kalwani

Carlos Borhorquez and Rachel Hillmer

Andrew Khalifa

Stefano Truschke

We had 18 Falling Illini make skydives on Saturday, including 11 first timers. I’d like to congratulate Shuting Ong, Jinyuan Yeong, Tony Ordonez, Laura Genis, Rachel Hillmer, Tim Kennedy and Amanda Goddard for making tandem skydives. Also congratulations to Perry Chodash, Hana Kwon-Engles, Tiffany Wong, Caitlin Fischer and Sigi Schobesberger for completeing the static-line first jump class. Finally to Elliot Tagtmeier, who did 5 jumps on Saturday, for completing his static-line jumps and making his first solo freefall jump.

Skydivers head to the plane

Caitlin Fischer and Tiffany Wong

Rachel Hillmer and Tandem Instructor Jason Papke

Laura Genis

Static line student comes in for a landing

This past weekend was a huge one for the Falling Illini. We had 38 people make skydives, some more than once. The majority of them were first-time jumpers, so I’d like to say congratulations to those that came out and jumped with us. I hope to see them again in the air very soon. Taking the first jump static line course were: Richard Wlodarsk, Dave Barron, Michael Lindsey, Daniel Bedford, Ben Hodes, Steve Slavicek, Chris Triphahn, Jon Westerhoff, Cody Ward, Mandy Morse, Alex Petersen, Ryan Ewald, Anand Lakshmanan, Jonathan Mun, Daniel Jose, Aram Cho, Nick Zombolas, Paul Bradarich, Wayne Sutton, Jason Blalock, Dimitry Braznichenko, Kevin White and Elliot Tagtmeier. Making tandem jumps were: Nathan Price, Alexis Walz, Luke Heaton, Colleen Lyons, Anne Munaretto, Steve Daar, Nisarg Vora, Carlos Bohorquez, Jeff Mason, Mark Smith, and Lianna Bosher. Way to go!

A huge group of Falling Illini gets ready for a day of skydiving

Nathan Price, Jeff Mason, Alexis Walz and Luke Heaton

Static-Line Instructor Louie Puder comes in for a landing.

An excited Alexis Walz after a tandem skydive.

Ryan Ewald after landing his parachute on a sunset static-line jump.

I would like to say congratulations to all these new jumpers who made their first jumps recently. Usually during the summer, with campus vacant, we don’t get very many first jump students, but we’ve had 9 last Saturday, and one the Saturday before that. Shahzad Hameedi, Jeanne Chang, Alex Rush and Emal Latifzai made their first static-line jumps, and Luke Burchett, Joey Figliulo, Jackie Figliulo, Emma Dorantes, Liz Keane and Pete Mockaitis made tandem jumps.

Shahzad Hameedi

Liz Keane and Pete Mockaitis

Emma Dorantes, Joey Figliulo, Jackie Figliulo, and Luke Burchett

Emal Latifzai Jeanne Chang and Alex Rush

Jeanne Chang

I want to wish Blue Skies to our new jumpers!

We had several people make first jumps at the end of the semester that I’d like to give a hand to.

On March 18th we had Erin Ahn, Lindy Knysak, and Ryan Henrichs.

On April Fool’s Day, Michael Fergus, Derek Runge, and Brian Turek make their first jumps.

On April 8th, Jessica Levasseur jumped.

On April 15th, we had a huge number of people come out and jump: Zach Stutzman, Jeff Townsend, Rachel Hellmann, Stephanie Miller, Shrinivas Tukdeo, Benjamin Schuecker, Matyas Toth, Laura Thompson, Alexander Valencic, Kari Miller, Jonatan Jalfin, Mina Mojtahedi, Katherine Thompson, Rachael Waugh, Michael Zeunert, Justin Tobin, Isabella Knoll, and Martin Jacobsson.

On April 19th, Richard O’Rourke jumped.

On April 22 Justin Lee and Matthew Zimmermann made jumps.

Amy Nelson, Jeff Townsend, Zach Stutzman, Rachel Hellmann, Alex Valencic, and Kari Miller

Mina Mojtahedi

Jeff Townsend and Zach Stutzman

Congratulations, guys!

Taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather (a balmy 39 degrees), the Falling Illini spent last Saturday at 14,000 ft. I’d like to congratulate Rishabh Mehta for braving the cold and the clouds and making his first static-line jump with us.

Rishabh Mehta after his first jump.

We were out jumping last Sunday and Colin Bennett and Paul Dovydaitis made their first Static-Line jumps, so everyone give them a big congradulations. Also, I’d like to give a shout out to Manuela Jandl and Phil Makotyn have completed the Static-Line tranining programs and they’re now doing coach jumps. They’ll hopefully get they’re A-licenses by the end of the year.

The moral of the story is that it isn’t too cold to jump. We’ll keep flying through the winter.

Paul Dovydaitis flies across the sky on his first jump.

Colin Bennett after his first jump.

Paul Dovydaitis after his first jump.

Colin Bennett landing on his first jump.

This weekend was a pretty big weekend for the Falling Illini. The weather was beautiful and we had 18 Falling Illini make skydives, including 14 first timers! On Saturday Jon Wilkinson, ShuHao Wang, and Ben Andersen made their first static-line jumps. Evan Sanders made a tandem jump. On Sunday we had Megan Dye, Joel Lau, Torance Khoo, and FangPing Lim do tandem jumps, and in the static-line course we had a Falling Illini airborne platoon: Emily Heindel, Maggie Kostova, Art Riewaldt, Paul Ahn, Ashish Gupta, Adam Hood and Tommy Parkhill. Congradulations, guys!

Megan Dye lands a tandem jump with instructor John Gentry

Saturday’s static-line class: ShuHao Wang, Jon Wilkinson, and Ben Anderson
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I would like to congradulate new jumpers David Pirszel, Manuela Jandl, and Hans Boye who made their first static-line skydives and Taylor Boydstun, who made his first AFF jump on Saturday. I would also like to congradulate Kora Lazarski who made her first tandem jump, and Philip Makotyn who completed his static-line jumps and did his first freefall. Way to go, guys!

David Pirszel makes a graceful landing on his first jump

Kora Lazarski
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I would like to congradulate new jumpers Michael Benjamin, Harish Tella, Jaime Gonzalez, John Ley, and Marcus Shaw who made their first skydives on Saturday. I would also like to congradulate Jessica Fulton, Mike Kozak, Mary Pellin, Kristen Weber, and Laura Zajdel who made their first tandem skydives on Sunday. Way to go, guys!

Mike Kozak, Laura Zajdel, Jessica Fulton, and Mary Pellin

Kristen Weber